A copy of Manhattan, complete with Rockefeller and Lincoln centers and what passes for the Hudson River, is under construction an hour’s train ride from Beijing. And like New York City in the 1970s, it may need a bailout, Bloomberg reported. Debt accumulated by companies financing local governments such as Tianjin, home to the New York lookalike project, is rising, a survey of Chinese-language bond prospectuses issued this year indicates. It also suggests the total owed by all such entities likely dwarfs the count by China’s national auditor and figures disclosed by banks.

Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank may ask shareholders and creditors to consider its second debt restructuring before year-end, according to two people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported. The people didn’t give details of the plan and declined to be identified because the information isn’t public.

Cracks are starting to appear in Australia's housing market, The Wall Street Journal reported. The value of homes in Australia's capital cities has fallen 4% in the first 10 months of this year. By June, Merrill Lynch predicts, house prices will be 10% below the June 2010 peak. Those numbers might not look too alarming given the depth of recent housing crises in other parts of the world. But weakness in Australia's property sector could be especially acute because of a boom in investment-property ownership.

Rogue liquidators have been put on notice after the government announced new laws to protect creditors from misconduct by corporate undertakers, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Under the changes revealed yesterday, creditors such as banks and small businesses will have the power to pass resolutions dismissing liquidators without court permission and to cap fees charged by insolvency firms.

The federal government is providing the corporate watchdog with $11.4 million in additional funding to help strengthen scrutiny of the insolvency industry, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Outgoing Attorney-General Robert McClelland released a suite of new proposals for the industry on Wednesday. They include new money for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to reform the way insolvency professionals are registered, disciplined and regulated.

Residential property builder National Builders Group is the latest company to be issued with an ultimatum from its bank: either refinance its loan with another bank or sell the business, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. The group, which generates revenue of between $25 million and $30 million selling home building services ranging from drafting, engineering, selecting fixtures then outsourcing construction to a builder, is in talks with Malaysian company MAE Synergy to buy the business by December 30. But National Builders Group is still very much a going concern.

Singapore-based majority shareholder in Eircom, ST Telemedia (STT), has made a balance sheet restructuring proposal to the independent directors of the debt-riddled company, the Irish Times reported. Earlier this month STT surprised many observers of Eircom’s fortunes when it said it would not be submitting a proposal “owing to the continuing macro-economic uncertainty in the euro zone”. The announcement by the Singapore fund came as Eircom’s syndicate of first-lien lenders were to meet to discuss their co-ordinating committee’s proposal to take over the heavily indebted business.

U.S. hedge fund Elliott Advisers LP is suing Vietnamese state-run shipbuilder Vinashin in the U.K. High Court, according to a filing seen by The Wall Street Journal. Vinashin defaulted on a $600 million syndicated loan last December, when the first repayment of $60 million was due. Other investors in the loan, which was arranged by Credit Suisse AG in 2007, include Dublin-based Depfa Bank PLC and Malayan Banking Bhd., as well as Credit Suisse.

The International Monetary Fund's top banking official, assessing the strength of China's financial system, said Chinese regulators need to improve the data they use to assess whether their banks could withstand a sudden economic downturn, and also should better explain what level of capital banks need to hold. "There are important constraints and gaps in the available data" for stress tests of China's banks, said José Viñals, the IMF's director of monetary and capital markets, in written responses Sunday to questions from The Wall Street Journal.

China’s shrinking trade surplus and the weakest export growth since 2009 may encourage Premier Wen Jiabao to keep cutting banks’ reserve requirements to sustain expansion in the world’s second-biggest economy, Bloomberg reported. Overseas shipments rose 13.8 percent in November from a year earlier, according to customs data released Dec. 10 in Beijing. The excess of exports over imports fell by 35 percent. A smaller trade surplus and signs that capital has started to flow out of the country may encourage the ruling Communist Party to add to a Nov.